Monday, August 27, 2012

Who's Running the Company?

Saturday the four of us went up to Omaha for the wedding of two of my former co-workers (Congrats you guys, we are so happy for you!)  I was sad to leave that location when we moved back to Lincoln, although my co-workers at my new location are pretty awesome.  I can not emphasize enough how much fun it was to see everyone, and by the turn out for the wedding I don't know who was left to run the company!  There were soooo many people there that I had worked with, it was so great! I realized how much I miss these people. 

I was a little worried about how everyone would handle the wedding, but my family is amazing (especially John) and everyone made it through.  John is so great; to make a long story short he has anxiety issues.  Although he has been doing a lot better lately, he still has trouble dealing with things outside of his comfort zone.  Especially 1-dealing with people he doesn't really know 2-being in crowded places, and the wedding was both.  But he went with me anyways even though we both knew how hard it would be on him; and he did it because he loves me and knows how much I wanted to go. =)  The boys were great too.  They barely made a peep at the church during the ceremony.  They both got pretty antsy at the reception when they had to sit in our laps for awhile during the entrance of the wedding party and waiting for dinner.  But once we had dinner and cake they perked back up.  Oliver loooooved the dance floor, he spent most of his time early in the evening dancing with the bigger kids (it was super cute!).  After dinner he had fun running off his energy running back and forth around the buffet and bar area.  They boys were a big hit with one of my old co-workers family, his 2 kiddos had the boys out on the dance floor most of the night, and Owynn was pretty attached to his wife.  When he started getting sleepy he got all snuggly, it was pretty cute. 

The ceremony was beautiful, and the reception was fantastic.  The food was yummy, everyone at our table was lots of fun, and I was way too happy with the giant candy bar they had.  Instead of traditional wedding favors they had a big table with different desserts and a big assortment of candy.  They had little baggies so you could make and take your own, I can't get over what a great idea that was!  Oh and the bride's dress was absolutely gorgeous!  It was like a princess dress and was all ruffles, she looked amazing!
  
We had such a great time, I wish that everyone could get together more often.  By the time we got home everyone was completely worn out and went straight to bed.  I was still pretty worn out when I got up this morning even though I got plenty of sleep (apparently my body thinks it's getting older).  For me it was a wonderful weekend!  John toughed it out and definitely needed our low key day today to recuperate.  With everything that has been going on lately I think I needed this.  I am very happy, thanks in no small part to John (because he is awesome).  I hope everyone else had a good weekend too!   

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Yay for Windstream and DirecTV


We finally got things figured out with internet and cable.  Yay!  We still have no extra money for the time being, but this will help save us some money.  We signed up for Windstream on-line and although it is a bit slower it is cheaper.  Plus they include a home phone line with unlimited long distance all for the same price.  Which for me is fantastic, because all my family is out of state.  No more worrying about going over my cell minutes!  At first John wasn’t sure he wanted to sign up with Windstream, but after a glowing recommendation from our friends we decided to go with them.  We will have our new home phone (we haven’t had one in YEARS) and INTERNET installed on Monday (8/13)!!!  We are wicked excited!

We had planned on going without cable for a while to save the extra money, but John decided we really need it.  You know, with baseball season winding down soon and football season starting.  We tried to go with Dish Network since they were having a promotion with Windstream, but because our credit is bad, they wanted over $300 up front.  Well that wasn’t going to happen.  So I called up DirecTV to see if they could offer us something better.  I am sooooo glad I did!  We had DirecTV for a couple of years when we lived up near Omaha and had to get rid of it when we moved.  We had a great experience with them and were very disappointed when we had to stop our service.  Anyways, DirecTV was able to offer us (apparently because “we were such great customers”) the current promotional rate for the first year that they are offering to new subscribers, 3 months free of more movie channels than we could possibly need, a free HD DVR, and what John is most excited about, NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL Sunday Ticket Max for free for the coming football season.  All this and only $20 down for shipping costs (awesome!)  Plus the DVR will hold A LOT more programming than our current one does. 

Update:  I wrote several posts while our internet it down (yay me!) and I'm glad I did.  Our install for both internet and DirecTV were scheduled on the same day and went very smoothly.  We had to have Windstream come back out the following day because our phone jack wasn't working properly.  But all in all it went very well.  We are very happy to have internet and tv back.  With DirecTV we now have Disney Jr, and I am loving it!  There is usually something cute on for the kiddos.  Things are starting to look up again, let's just hope it stays that way.   

Sunday, August 19, 2012

18 Month Check Up


The last weekend in July I took Friday off and enjoyed a nice long weekend.  Friday we all went up to Omaha to see the Dr. (s).  I made four appointments back to back and hoped that my Dr.’s weren’t too delayed.  We go to a small office in a new addition at one of the area hospitals.  I know my OB is always late, so I scheduled her appointment last.  All four of us see one primary Dr. (who is amazing by the way) so when I schedule us multiple appointments (3 that day), they usually just put us in the big exam room together and see us all at once.  Thankfully everything went as planned and I made my second appointment with my OB on time (yay).    

 The boys were there for their 18 month check-up.  They are doing well; Owynn is still slowly but surely gaining weight.  With everything that boy eats I’m amazed he doesn’t weigh more.  He normally eats more than Oliver, we just can’t figure out where he puts it all.  Owynn is 21lbs 16oz and 30 ½ inches long (he’s 2 & ½ feet tall!) Oliver is now putting good distance between himself and Owynn at 24lbs 13oz and 31 inches long.  If Oliver keeps growing at this pace he’s going to be fully in 2T clothes by Christmas.  My boys are getting too big too fast.  I did bring up to the Dr. that they aren’t really talking much yet.  From what I read this age is the time where they start picking up a lot more words and the really just aren’t.  The Dr. asked us if they “talk” to each other, and they do, A LOT.  He said because they are twins they essentially have their own language and can understand each other, so to them there really isn’t much need to be able to talk yet.  They boys say a few words, like Mommy, Daddy, all done, cheese, cracker, and some more they are working towards.  The Dr. told us not to worry, they are “talking” to each other and they understand pretty much everything we say to them, they will talk eventually.  And if for some reason they haven’t started talking much more by their birthday, we will talk about it some more then.  Owynn didn’t handle the visit very well; he cried the whole time the Dr. was looking at him.  Oliver on the other hand did amazing, not only did he not make a peep, he actually toddled over to the Dr. and asked to be picked up.  He sat like such a good little boy on our Dr.’s knee while I was talking to him about my stomach stuff. 
My stomach is still being stupid, but lately it’s been a little less so.  I’m still getting motion sickness way more than I should, but I haven’t had a random episode recently.  Since all my tests have come back normal so far he is going to try me on a new acid reflux medication and see how I do.  I also saw my OB who gave me the green light on another pregnancy whenever we are ready.  That didn’t really do much to help my baby fever, which I still have and still needs to go away. 
After our appointments we went out to lunch at this really yummy sandwich shop called Which Wich.  We shouldn’t have spent the money on lunch out, but after a day spent at the dr. and the stress of everything that has been going on lately, I decided we needed it. 

Every time we go back up to Omaha I find myself missing our little suburb we used to live in more and more.  Even though it’s about 45-60 minutes from our family and friends, it is such a nice town.  It still has a small town feel even while developing quickly.  Eventually (several years from now) we will have to decide where we want to settle down (i.e.: buy a house, which we WILL make happen).  John pointed out to me yesterday that here a house costing $124,000 with a 30 year mortgage at a full percentage point above the current rate would cost approximately $596 a month before adding in any extras to the financing.  That pretty much blew my mind, why was I thinking we’d be paying like $1,000 a month for a home???  Here’s to hoping that in 5 years we will actually be looking at buying a home.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Birthdays!

I want to wish a wonderful 30th Birthday to my husband John!
He isn't too thrilled about turning the big 3-0 and I can't say I blame him, I'll be in the same boat in a couple of years.  I will make a longer post wishing him an awesome birthday later this week when I am home and we have internet back.  Our friends P&W are totally awesome and are throwing John a birthday party later this afternoon, I for one am super excited! 

Also, Happy early Birthday to my Dad whose birthday is tomorrow!  I miss you and wish we could be there again this year to help celebrate.  And Happy Anniversary to my parents who are celebrating 29 years together tomorrow too!

Sunday, August 5, 2012

It's Dark Over Here

We have run into some budgetary issues over here lately and it really hasn't been fun.  Let's give you some background.  Currently I am our only source of income, John is a  SAHD and I love it.  If John was working full time one of us would be working almost solely to pay for daycare  for the boys.  Anyways John lost his job while I was still on maternity leave and we ended up having to file for a chapter 13 bankruptcy.  It's not something I am proud of, but we have been trying to do the best with the cards we've been dealt. 
Unfortunately lately my paychecks haven't been enough, almost half of each paycheck goes to pay our bankruptcy payments, health insurance, and taxes.  We could "save money" by not having insurance, but that's not something I'm willing to compromise on.  Anyhoo, we've been stressing a lot about how to manage to pay our bills and still put food on the table. We have gotten really behind on our utilities =( We are current with at&t only because they are anal retentive about getting paid on time.  Thankfully our gas and electric companies were both very understanding and we able to give us some options.  Their customer service was fantastic and now I am not as stressed. 
Our cable and internet is another issue entirely. We go through time warner because unless you want satellite, they are the only cable company in town. I understand that I am woefully behind in paying my bill, but they had a complete lack of customer service.  I talked to someone initially who was very friendly who said there were some payment options, but would have to transfer me.  I sat on hold for just over 20 minutes until I reached a rude agent who informed me there was nothing they could do.  Awesome.  This isn't the first time we've had issues with them.  Hopefully it will be the last.  As soon as I can I want to find another internet service provider.  We plan on living without cable for now to save us some money.  When we do get it back it most definitely won't be from time warner.  The whole no internet is a lot tougher to handle than no cable though.  I am currently writing from my husbands phone, which is very annoying and time consuming.  Oh well, things will get better eventually, let's just hope I don't go too nutty before we get our internet back.